Charlie’s Order by Miranda Martin EPUB & PDF – eBook Details
- Author: Miranda Martin
- Language: English
- Formats: PDF / EPUB
- Status: Available For Free Download
- Series: None
- Price: Free
- File Size: 1 MB
I take a deep breath and hold it. The air on Tajss is hot and it’s humid.
It smells of growing things and dying things. It smells and it is
wonderful. It fills my lungs and I hold it until I get light-headed then I let it
out in a rush. Tilting my head back, I stare up at the two red suns that beat
down on the planet like the eyes of an interminably angry god. I throw my
arms wide, and I soak in their heat as I turn a slow circle.
The ship had sections that would mimic life on a planet. Preparing us for
what it would be like. That’s not true, preparing my great grandchildren,
when and if they would ever be born, for this life. It was never intended that I
would have this experience. This is all one giant accident. Or the moving
hand of fate, if Belle is to be believed, and I’m scientist enough to know that
I can’t rule out the possibility.
She’s not wrong, exactly. The odds against all of this are astronomical. I
started to do the math but without a computer or even a proper pile of paper
and a pen, it quickly became an exercise in futility.
Whatever the reason, however it came to be that I am here, I love this place.
Love it in a way I’ve never felt, in a way that I didn’t know could be felt.
Even the gravity of the planet feels different. The ship was very clever,
designed to fool us, but it didn’t compare.
“Get to work,” I tell myself.
Bad habit, taking to myself. Got it from my dad, who at times could seem
like he was narrating his own life. I’ve tried, a few times, to quit but what can
you do? A lifelong habit isn’t an easy thing to give up. I mostly suppress it
when I’m around the others, but on my own, I like to narrate. I like the sound
of my own voice and it helps me focus.
And there is so much to focus on.
Tajss is an incredible planet. The ecology of it is a lifetime of research
begging to be done. I could write volumes on the flora alone and never touch
the fauna. Or the native inhabitants and my newly formed suspicions about
them.
There’s so much to learn. So much to study. The path of my life is laid out
and I’m excited to live it. But right now, I have a job to do. There’s a root
plant, like a carrot, except bigger and purple like a turnip that I’m supposed
to be gathering for dinner.
The sound of the ocean waves crashing against the cliffs is a steady rhythm
of relaxation. A constancy that soothes the nerves. Our new home is built
close to the cliff which drops thirty feet at the lowest point to a rocky beach
below. The home itself is a square stone edifice rising from the ground as if
its part of it.
Around the building is a wide clearing filled with yellowish grass. The root I
want will be closer to the jungle so I move west towards the edge, carefully
alert for any of the myriad dangers that wait for a chance to make a meal out
of me.
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